Thursday, October 05, 2006

Environmental protection officials sacked over arsenide pollution

The head and a deputy head of a local environmental protection bureau have been fired over an arsenide spill that caused a water shortage for 80,000 people for four days in central China's Hunan Province.

Chen Lin, director of the Linxiang City Environmental
Protection Bureau, and Liu Yushu, one of the bureau's deputy directors,
were removed from office for the bureau's lax supervision of the
companies that caused the pollution, according to government sources
with the Yueyang City.

Warnings and other penalties were given to five other
officials, including Hu Zhirong, the secretary of the Linxiang city
committee of the Communist Party of China, Lu Shuhua, vice mayor of Linxiang city, and Mao Zhibing, acting mayor of Linxiang.

The pollution was reported on Sept. 8, when workers from the
local environmental monitoring center conducted routine testing of
water quality in the Xinqiang River of Yueyang County and found the
content of arsenide was ten times higher than normal.

Two chemical plants, the Yueyang Haoyuan Chemical Plant and
the Taolin Lead-Zinc Ore Chemical Plant, both less than 20 km from the
polluted river, were blamed for illegal discharges of a highly toxic
arsenic compound into the river.

The two plants have since been closed.

The pollution forced the local government to suspend drinking
water supplies to 80,000 people for four days. No casualties were
reported. A chronic intake of arsenide could cause liver and kidney
damage or lung and skin cancer.

Investigators said the two plants severely violated environmental laws and regulations.

The local government also violated rules when issuing pollutant
discharging permits and were lax in their supervision, they said.

Managers of the two companies, Yao Zhaohui and Liu Chengping,
have been arrested. They may face criminal charges and prosecution.